Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)

Many people watching this debate will be baffled by the figures to which we are referring. Anglo Irish Bank left a toxic debt of €30.6 billion and interest rates charged on these loans will cost a further €16.6 billion, giving a total of €47 billion, and interest on the moneys borrowed by the Government to pay these debts will bring the debt to a massive €74 billion by 2031. If this Government has its way, like its predecessors in Fianna Fáil and the Greens, the debt will all be paid by us, every cent of a massive €78 billion paid by those who never had any hand, act or part to play in creating it.

To put this in perspective, a child born tonight in the Rotunda Hospital will, in 20 years time as a grown adult, still be paying for the mistakes of this and the previous Governments. Every year of that child's life, we will pay €3.1 billion to unsecured bondholders. We have no legal, moral or financial obligation to do so, but Fianna Fáil, the Green Party, Fine Gael and Labour all now believe, apparently, that we must sink in a sea of debt to pay off these bondholders.

While the Government oversees the greatest of grand thefts in history, children continue to receive their education not in schools but in rented portakabins because there are no funds to build schools and no funds to refurbish existing schools. In my constituency of Laoighis-Offaly, we now have prefab villages surrounding the primary schools. Nursing homes in Abbeyleix, Edenderry and Tullamore are losing beds and the hospital in Abbeyleix is set to close. I attended a protest meeting of more than 1,000 people about this issue last night. This is all simply because the health care system is starved of funds. Community-based drug services and youth services are threatened with further cuts to their funding in this year's budget. A further €3.8 billion is set to be cut out of our economy in this year's budget by a Government which is more concerned with paying off faceless bondholders than serving its own people.

The good news is there is hope. There is always an alternative, which is what we in Sinn Féin are about. We simply cannot pay. The Government can and should pursue the alternative way, some of which its members outlined before they came to power. The Government should enter into immediate discussions with the European Central Bank to have the promissory note withdrawn. If it did this, it would immediately reduce the State's debt to GDP ratio by 27%.

Sinn Féin sees very clearly that this money should be invested in growing our economy, including the green economy. The money that is taking flight to the bondholders could be invested in energy infrastructure that would set a new world standard. To give a few simple examples, we have the potential to develop wind energy along our west coast which would create tens of thousands of jobs over the next 15 years, and some neighbouring countries have asked us to do this. We could also create jobs through retrofitting the 1.4 million units of housing stock in the State to the highest standard. This would immediately create savings of on average €1,000 for each householder and would assist Ireland in reaching its 20% energy efficiency target by 2020. In turn, this would create further jobs. We also have the ability to develop water harvesting, at a cost of €5,000 per home, to reduce our water consumption by a third. Sinn Féin would invest money in completing the regeneration projects that have been abandoned. Our allegiance, as a party, is to the residents of Limerick's Southhill, Dublin's St. Michael's Estate, Dominick Street, St. Teresa's Gardens and Charlemont Street, and many other communities throughout the State, not with the faceless bondholders. That is the difference.

The money that is being sent overseas to the bondholders belongs to us, to the taxpayers of the State, to constituents and to the children born today. Let us invest in them and in a brighter future.

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